How do you get an SEAI grant for a heat pump?
To receive the SEAI grant for a heat pump, you must get a Technical Assessment done by an SEAI registered Technical Advisor.
The Technical Advisor will provide a report to detail if your house insulation levels are efficient enough to be able to retain the heat from a heat pump effectively. If your house is not compatible with a heat pump the Technical Assessor will detail what insulation upgrade works are required, along with an estimate of each insulation upgrade cost along with possible grants available to you.
If you already have your house insulated sufficiently, e.g. Cavity walls pumped, new windows installed and attic insulated to 300mm and your house meets the heat pump requirements then you are eligible to apply for the heat pump grant but the Technical Advisor will still need to do a BER to prove the house is efficient enough to retain the heat for the heat pump.
The Technical Advisor role
The Technical Advisor will carry out a BER on your house to ascertain the building fabric heat loss. The building fabric heat loss is the heat lost through the building element of the house, such as the floors, walls, windows and ceilings. Default U-value figures can only be used for elements that have not received insulation upgrade works. This means that if you cannot prove insulation upgrade works have been carried out, we cannot include it in the BER and you will not be eligible for the heat pump grant.
The Technical Advisor will input all the survey information gathered on the day of the survey into the DEAP software. DEAP will generate a BER for the house. DEAP will also generate a Heat Loss Indicator.
What is a Heat Loss Indicator?
As a domestic house heat pump operates most efficiently in a dwelling that has low ventilation heat and low fabric heat loss. This will allow the heat pump to operate at a much lower water and distribution space heating temperature. This will enable the heat pump to operate less frequently and to be more efficient. The Better Energy Homes grant specifically requires that the there is a low fabric and ventilation loss in a dwelling.
A heat loss indicator (HLI) is used to ascertain if the dwelling is compliant to receive the Better Energy Homes Grant. The HLI is calculated using the total ventilation and fabric losses for the house divided by the dwellings total floor area. SEAI require that the HLI must be below, 2 Watts/Kelvin/m2.
The above house was a semi-detached dwelling that received basic insulation upgrades that consisted of, 60mm cavity walls pumped (Costing €900) and the attic was insulated to 300mm (Costing €650). This gave the house an HLI of 1.87, which then allows the homeowner to apply for the heat pump grant.
How much is a Technical Assessment for a Heat Pump Grant
The cost for a Technical Advisor to perform a technical assessment of your dwelling can vary greatly. There are a couple of possible scenarios regarding the cost of a technical advisor assessment.
SEAI Better Energy Homes grant has allowed €200 for the cost of the technical assessment. This €200 can only be received if you qualify for the grant.
This means that if you decide to not go ahead with the grant because it might be too expensive to upgrade the insulation in your house, you will not receive the €200 then. You will only receive the €200 when you receive the €3,500 from SEAI toward the heat pump grant.
You will need a final BER after all the Better Energy Homes grant works have been completed. The final BER is part of the Declaration of Works (DOW) for the BER grant forms. This shows to SEAI that the grant measures have been completed and the energy improvement to your home.
Cost of a Technical Assessment
If your house has received all the insulation BEH upgrades before our Technical assessment then this must be proven. You will need Certs from the constructors that insulated your building house. The certs must detail the depth of insulation and the type of insulation used in each building element. If this information is available then a technical assessment on a standard semi-detached house will cost €250 to perform.
If you have never had any insulation upgrade works perform and you require extensive help to upgrade your house to receive a heat pump, then the cost for this type of dwellings technical assessment starts at €500.
SEAI provide additional information for the heat pump grant here.